This may come as a shock, but having the Supreme Court of the United States overturn Roe v Wade and ban legal abortion is not part of the Great Commission.

Whether you view abortion as murder or as a woman’s right to choose, one thing is clear:

Christ never told His disciples to focus their energies on banning infanticide – the intentional killing of children. It was a common practice in the Roman world. Yet, as far as I can tell, Jesus never said a word about it.

I’m not saying He doesn’t care about aborted children. He cares. In fact, Jesus cares about all people at all times from womb to grave. He cares so much that he came into the world to save sinners – all sinners, including sinners who have abortions.

Jesus is no hater of sinners. God so loved the world that He sent Jesus to save us from ourselves. About the only thing Scripture documents Jesus hating is religious hypocrites and their grand-standing public displays of piety.

Christ instructed His disciples to love one another and gave them one priority:

He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15)

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Near our home is a women’s health clinic that performs abortions. On Saturday mornings, people can be found standing outside waving large, full-color pictures of shredded babies and yelling through blowhorns as women drive into the now gated business. It’s gated with a tall privacy fence to shield these women from the vitriol that now passes as committed conservative Christianity.

Yelling at desperate women is in direct contradiction to what Jesus said His followers ought to be and do. Jesus taught us to love. To love one another. To love our enemies.

Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Someone once asked Jesus to define “neighbor.” He told the story of a Samaritan helping a Jewish man who’d been beaten by robbers and ignored by his religious countrymen. The Samaritan chose to help someone from a people group he’d been taught to avoid because he had compassion for another human being.

Contrast that response with besieging abortion seekers. Or investing years of resources in marches for life, anti-abortion television ads, political action committees and lobbyists — resources that could have been used to build and staff more Christian life homes that give women in unwanted pregnancies the financial and emotional support they need to have healthy, live births and the opportunity to choose to parent or place their babies for adoption.

Do these crusaders know Christ in the pardon of their own sins? I wonder. There is a kind of prideful, controlling spirt in their demand to ban legal abortion and override the freewill of people who make a choice they consider wrong. God Himself does not do that.

To choose life over death by repenting of sin and trusting in Christ for salvation, is a choice each person is privileged to make – or not. While God doesn’t want anyone to perish, He does not force anyone to repent.

It’s clear to me that Christ does not want His followers to have abortions. But we do not get to choose for others. Our role is to share the Gospel and the love of Christ so that people are more inclined to choose life for themselves and for their unborn children.

If everything I’ve shared is somehow disagreeable, consider that salvation is based on faith in Christ alone, our works contribute nothing. If no one in America ever had another abortion, America would be no more a “Christian nation” than it is today. Every person who did not have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ still would be lost – legalized abortion or not.

That’s a fact.